Sustainable Thinking Classrooms

Other publication/report details

Title
TLRP: Sustainable Thinking Classrooms: ACTS II - poster

Description
This poster discusses the rationale and methodology of the project Sustainable Thinking Classrooms: ACTS II. The project will create and evaluate practical teaching strategies to improve classroom learning in primary schools, enhancing pupils’ thinking skills across the curriculum. The research examines the role of metacognition in teaching thinking skills at Key Stage 2. "Metacognition" refers to people's knowledge about thinking which helps them to manage effectively their thought processes in learning and problem solving. Classroom dialogue is thought to play a key role teaching this form of intellectual management. This project will focus on assessing and promoting appropriate dialogue, analysing the critical features of this approach in terms of improving learning outcomes for both pupils and teachers, and models of teacher support which can sustain innovation in this regard. Three interrelated studies will be conducted. The first will develop and evaluate a framework for analysing metacognitive features of teachers’ and pupils’ classroom dialogue. The second will evaluate an intervention process involving the promotion of appropriate teaching; the effects on both teachers' and pupils' learning will be appraised. The third study will develop long term strategies for sustaining thinking classrooms with a focus on metacognitive activity. The research builds on the achievements of the ACTS (Activating Children’s Thinking Skills) project in Northern Ireland. The project involves a wide range of collaborations, working with teachers, curriculum advisers and officers from the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) in Northern Ireland to develop evidence-based teaching strategies. The main aim of this project is to create powerful and productive pedagogies for classroom learning and relate these to learning outcomes. The project will generate training materials in a variety of forms for teaching thinking skills, which teachers can apply to their own practice. These will also be valuable for teacher trainers, education authorities and curriculum support units so that the practices created in the project will continue beyond the life of the project.